Chemistry of Cookies

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Chemistry of Cookies

Hopewell Valley Student Podcasting Network

Chemistry Connections

Chemistry of Cookies

Episode #6  

Welcome to Chemistry Connections, my name is Zoe Reznik and I am your host for episode #6 called Chemistry of Cookies. Today I will be discussing the science behind your perfect chocolate chip cookie.

Segment 1: Introduction to Chemistry of Cookies

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  • Every chocolate chip cookie has a different set of chemical properties and reactions that give them their unique textures. Whether your idea of the perfect cookie means it being chewy, crispy, or soft, there is a specific set of ingredients that give your cookie that wow factor.
  •  To start, every cookie has the same base ingredients: flour, sugar, eggs, and butter. What you add to that list of ingredients really makes the cookie what it is. In this episode, I’ll be diving into the types of rising agents you can use and the different types of sugar.

Segment 2: The Chemistry Behind Cookies

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  • To begin our investigation of the cookie, we’ll talk about the types of rising agents you use in your cookies, specifically baking soda and baking powder. 
  • “soda spread and powder puffs” – baking soda helps your cookie dough spread out in the oven and baking powder helps the cookie rise. 
  • Adding more baking soda will create a denser cookie, that’s flatter and not as soft. Adding more baking powder will result in a cookie that is taller and more doughy (more cake-like texture). 
  • baking soda, sodium bicarbonate, decomposes into water and carbon dioxide when heated, with a leftover salt. 
  • These products are gas -> warmer gas molecules will have particles that move faster, so they collide with other molecules in the cookie more, causing the cookie to expand in the oven. 
  • However, the salt slows down the process of the bubbles creating air pockets within the cookie, meaning the cookie will fall flat instead of rising like it should. This is where the baking powder comes in. Baking powder combines that sodium bicarbonate with an acid that helps the cookies rise. 
  • This combination is a mixture of an acid and a base, as the acid used in the baking powder will donate an H+ to the sodium bicarbonate from the baking soda, neutralizing the effect of the excess salt. That’s a little Bronsted-Lowry chemistry for you there. So, basically depending on how fluffy or dense you want your cookie, you should adjust your baking soda to baking powder ratio accordingly. 

The next part of our baking adventure is the type of sugar used in chocolate chip cookies: regular white granulated sugar, light brown sugar, and dark brown sugar. 

  • The Maillard process: a chemical reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars in the cookie that allow the cookie to caramalize (get that brown coloring) and give out an intense, rich flavor. 
  • Reducing sugars are created from the breaking of bonds within sucrose to form fructose and glucose during heating. 
  • Sucrose and fructose are highly polar, so they can form hydrogen bonds with water molecules in the cookies, allowing for a greater water retention in the cookie, or less evaporation of the water when baking the cookie. Hydrogen bonds are a type of intermolecular forces between two very polar molecules, in this case it’s sugar and water. They are very strong and hard to break, so when the sugar forms one with water, it creates a strong enough bond that won’t break when it undergoes heating, allowing the water to stay within the cookie.
  • greater the water concentration in the cookie = more moist and fluffy cookie
  • White granulated sugar will not undergo a strong Maillard reaction because it doesn’t contain as much reducing sugars, so a cookie with white granulated sugar will be a crispier cookie 
  • Dark brown sugar undergoes a much stronger Maillard reaction and will produce a softer, chewier cookie because of all the reducing sugars it has 
  • Light brown sugar is somewhere in the middle. 
  • Basic rundown: to make a lighter, chewier cookie, you want less water to evaporate during the baking process. To get this to happen, you want more reducing sugars in your cookie that will form hydrogen bonds to the water molecules and keep them in the cookie. To get a higher concentration of reducing sugars, you want a darker sugar, like dark brown sugar. Lighter sugar = crispy cookie, darker sugar = chewier cookie. 

Segment 3: Personal Connections

What interested you in this topic?  Why is it important?  Anything else you’d like to share.

  • My sister has been baking for years, and I admired her baked goods as a little kid
  • I started baking on my own in high school and chocolate chip cookies are my favorite baked good
  • Looking for the perfect recipe
  • This podcast is a great excuse for me to bakes a ton of cookies and eat them to see which one is best
  • The best cookie is with: (enter here)

Thank you for listening to this episode of Chemistry Connections.   For more student-ran podcasts and digital content, make sure that you visit www.hvspn.com. 

Sources:

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Music Credits

Warm Nights by @LakeyInspired 

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Today I will be discussing the science behind your perfect chocolate chip cookie.

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